


Never Fully Repay

by Azar



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Causality, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/pseuds/Azar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'd been looking forward to finally meeting the young genius that Al wouldn't stop raving about. She never expected to recognize him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Fully Repay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Winterjameson](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Winterjameson).



As the restaurant door banged shut behind her, Beth stopped her headlong flight and took a long, deep breath of the crisp night air. Her thoughts were in turmoil. 

She'd been looking forward to tonight, to finally meeting the young genius that Al wouldn't stop raving about. After all, anyone who could juggle six doctorates in such widely disparate fields, revolutionize quantum physics, and win over her naturally suspicious husband in record time had to be worth knowing. So, when Al suggested inviting Dr. Beckett and his fiancee, Dr. Alessi, to join them for dinner, she didn't hesitate to agree.

She never expected to recognize him.

Sam Beckett, TIME Magazine's "greatest mind of his generation", couldn't have been more than a teenager in April of 1969. Nonetheless, the man sitting there inside the restaurant with Al was unmistakably the same man she'd met all those years ago. In fact, he looked younger than he did in her startlingly clear memory of that night. Once Al got him talking about his dream to build a time machine, she knew why. 

That was when she had to flee, because that knowledge turned her world on its ear.

Beth knew how close she had come to giving up on Al when he was MIA in Vietnam. It had been so hard to wait, and the memory of how badly their marriage had been deteriorating made her wonder if it was even worth it. Who was to say if anything would change even if he did return? But when a stranger appeared in her living room, told her to wait, and then disappeared...how could she argue with divine intervention like that?

Only it wasn't divine. It was Sam. The same Sam was who was talking about how time travel should only be used to observe the past, never to change it.

Obviously something must have changed--or rather, would change--because she didn't have to be a genius to figure out how her life would have gone if not for that encounter. Al would've still come back from Vietnam a changed man, only she wouldn't have been there to reap the benefits of it. Who knows the path his life would have taken then, but obviously it was bad enough for Sam to break every rule to fix it.

Beth was smart enough, too, to know what that meant: she didn't dare tell anyone that Sam's dream would succeed, lest she risk undoing it all. 

So what was she going to tell Al when he inevitably asked her what was wrong?

Taking a deep breath, Beth closed her eyes and reached for the same faith and resolve that had helped her hang on to that long-ago promise. Sam's time machine would be built; she'd do everything in her power to make sure of it.

It was the least she owed him.


End file.
